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Does anyone think that 30 years from now Detroit’s Prince Fielder, Chicago’s Paul Konerko, the Yankees’ Mark Teixiera, or the Rangers’ Mitch Moreland will be remembered as being in the same class with Albert Pujols?

Outside of their rookie seasons (none made it on rookie year)...
Mickey Mantle: not on the 1966 AS team at age 34 (did get some MVP votes though)
Hank Aaron: not on the 1976 AS team at age 42 (his final season)
Willie Mays: only missed due to military
Ted Williams: Only missed in 1952 (military)
Stan Musial: only missed due to being a rookie

Funny, if I had to guess I'd have thought Mickey Mantle would've been the only one to never miss, instead outside of Aaron's final season it was the only one missed.

To me it seems that's the whole philosophical issue with the All Star game.....is it there for the players having the best half season, or is it there for the fans to see the "stars"? Until this is resolved any arguments over who belongs and who doesn't are pointless. Pujols doesn't belong if you look at his numbers over the first part of 2012.

I think the Web and online voting must be having some impact on the fan voting. When I was a kid in the 1970s, I would get to vote using a paper ballot those two or three times I went to a ballgame in the first half of the season. I didn't have access to every candidate's first-half stats with one click from the ballot. And while I had newspapers obviously, I didn't have the visceral impact of daily videos of amazing catches, clutch steals, swinging strikeouts, or booming home runs from all over MLB, except for the highlights on "This Week in Baseball". So I was less informed and I voted a lot for the familiar names, especially in the other league (Joe Morgan is great and must deserve it, etc.).

Also, and this is a separate issue: in Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Williams and Musial, Barra picked five players who played at such a consistently high level that they pretty much deserved an All-Star berth every year, except in some cases the final year or two. Sure, maybe Musial didn't deserve it in 1959. And Aaron probably wasn't deserving in 1975 based on his first-half numbers but, you know, the year before he had frickin' broken one of the most hallowed records in sports. Etcetera. The point is, this is a unique, elite group of inner-circle Hall of Famers, and it isn't entirely fair to use this group as a benchmark for others.

Until this is resolved any arguments over who belongs and who doesn't are pointless.

Well, there isn't really any way to resolve it.

As I said in the other thread, I think the idea of picking All-Stars based almost entirely on first-half numbers is a bad one, but I respect that some people feel that's how it should be done. Barra should have noted that his viewpoint doesn't necessarily belong to everyone.

I think one point to be made is that when the players Barra mentioned were playing, the league was half the size it is now, which meant there were fewer potential players, and fan bases, to sneak ahead of them in an off year.
The other observation I'd make is that Barra is understating Pujol's season by calling it "slightly off". When looking at the players on his list, the only full seasons with OPS+'s as low as Pujols is right now came when they were rookies or in their late 30s and 40s. I don't have time (or means?) to see half-season numbers for those players, but I think it's fair to say this is an unusually bad season for an all-time great hitter at this age.
When you consider that his old fan base (St. Louis) probably did not vote much for Albert, and his new fan base (LA of A) might not have either because of disappointment, this outcome shouldn't be that surprising.

is it there for the players having the best half season, or is it there for the fans to see the "stars"?

It's always seemed from player comments that they're in favor of the former interpretation. Players are competitive, they look at the stats, and they like it to be acknowledged when they're ahead in current competition.

The latter was Bill James's attitude, as well as that of a lot of fans and probably a lot of statheads. Half-seasons are a SSS, and even if Mitch Moreland or Craig Gentry is hitting really well, it's still absurd to think they're greater players right now than Albert Pujols or Curtis Granderson (just to pick random examples).

Also, Barra's wrong about one thing: Albert Pujols isn't in Ted Williams' category. TW had a lifetime OPS+ of 190, even though he lost 3 years of prime and zero years of his decline. Albert Pujols has had 1 season over 190, and a lifetime OPS+ of 168. Albert's career is very comparable to the other guys, but none of them are in Ted Williams' category as a hitter.

To me it seems that's the whole philosophical issue with the All Star game.....is it there for the players having the best half season, or is it there for the fans to see the "stars"? Until this is resolved any arguments over who belongs and who doesn't are pointless. Pujols doesn't belong if you look at his numbers over the first part of 2012.

I agree that there is a legitimate philosophical difference of opinion up for debate here, but it has to be one or the other. If someone is going to tell me that Chipper Jones belongs in the All-Star Game, that's fine, but just don't then turn around and tell me that Pujols doesn't belong. If you're going to tell me that Bryce Harper, one of the best 19 year olds in the history of the game, hasn't done enough to be in it that's fine as well, but then don't tell me that Yu Darvish with his 102.2 career MLB innings pitched seriously deserves to be in there.

But at least the A.L. got that desperately needed 14th pitcher on the roster. This way none of them will likely have to get more than two outs.

Columns like this remind me of what a friend who was a columnist for the college paper once told me -- he'd usually draft to the point of only needing minor changes two different columns in advance of the weekend's football game... one bemoaning the team's crappiness, the other lauding their greatness. That way, he could just enjoy the game and festivities, only needing a few spare minutes to dust off the right one to hand in after the game.

If you're going to tell me that Bryce Harper, one of the best 19 year olds in the history of the game, hasn't done enough to be in it that's fine as well, but then don't tell me that Yu Darvish with his 102.2 career MLB innings pitched seriously deserves to be in there.

That's it exactly..the consistency isn't there. Do we want to see,say, the 1973 Willie Mays in the game, to honor him for his past, or do we get a good young player in? The "casual" fan that MLB wants to watch the game probably has no idea that Chipper isn't the best 3b in baseball. I think most people know who Harper is and want to see him; where most casual fans aren't clear at all about who Darvish is.

I think one point to be made is that when the players Barra mentioned were playing, the league was half the size it is now, which meant there were fewer potential players, and fan bases, to sneak ahead of them in an off year.

And it's also a hell of a lot easier now to cast multiple ballots than it was when each ballot had to be cut out of a newspaper and mailed in a separate envelope with a first class stamp. In the days of Mantle, Musial and Williams they didn't even have ballots available at the ballparks.

OTOH if one team's fanbase got a jones about it back then, it was also easier to overwhelm the ballot box. In 1956 and 1957 a Cincinnati radio station promoted the idea of voting for a straight Reds ticket, and the Sunday Cincinnati Enquirer printed multiple ballots that made it easier to do so. The result was that in 1956 five out of the eight starters were Reds, and in 1957 only Ford Frick's override kept Willie Mays and Hank Aaron in the game as starters ahead of Gus Bell and Wally Post. Prior to Frick's action, only Stan Musial had survived the ballot stuffing campaign. After that, Frick took away the fans' vote altogether and gave it to the players, managers and coaches, and it wasn't restored to the fans until 1970.

1. Barra does have a good point, in that most of those guys are barely having better seasons than Pujols to begin with. Konerko is the only guy who is having a much better year at the plate.

2. On the other hand, Fielder, Tex, and Konerko are all guys who have very respectable careers to date. Nobody would be surprised in 30 years to see that they made the 2012 All Star team. Moreland, OTOH, not so much.

I'm fine with the competing philosophies on who is an all star. I'm not fine with any philosophy that puts Jeter on the roster again. The guy hasn't been an average player since 2009. You can't just keep putting a guy in who is hanging around because of his contracts/team.

Of course any voting system that didn't have McCutchen as a starter is a screwed up system that needs to be overhauled immediately.

Its not binary. Its both. Melky Cabrera absolutely deserves to be in the ASG. And stars also belong.

Which gets to the question -- how many "stars" are there, who should be there even if they are having mediocre or poor first halfs? With 35 man rosters, I just don't think it is that hard to find a place for them.

Didn't Reds fans stuff the ballot one year in the 70s and got almost the entire Reds lineup into the game until the Commish intervened? Yea, this is totally a new thing that is ruining the game. The way to attract more fans is to allow them to engage with the game less!

Didn't Reds fans stuff the ballot one year in the 70s and got almost the entire Reds lineup into the game until the Commish intervened?

1957. Reds fans stuffed the ballot box, getting seven Reds starters in the lineup. The only Reds starter they didn't get elected was George Crowe, who led the Reds with 31 homers that year, but lost to Stan Musial (can't argue with that)! The commissioner replaced two Reds outfielders with Willie Mays and Henry Aaron (can't argue with that, either!), but let the other five Reds starters stand. After the season, the fans lost the vote until 1970.

Also, it was newspapers enabling the ballot stuffing. Apparently, at the time, the only way to vote outside of going to games was to cut a ballot out of a newspaper, fill it out, and mail it in. So at least one Cincinnati newspaper printed up multiple ballots, already filled out with all Reds players, in their Sunday edition.

With 26 players, we have all the players most likely to make the HOF at each position plus the 1st Half fWAR leader at each position. We've also represented all the teams except the Royals, so we can add Moustakas since the other 2 3B are questionable defenders.

Didn't Reds fans stuff the ballot one year in the 70s and got almost the entire Reds lineup into the game until the Commish intervened?

See # 20. I answered that one about 2 hours before you asked it.

1957. Reds fans stuffed the ballot box, getting seven Reds starters in the lineup. The only Reds starter they didn't get elected was George Crowe, who led the Reds with 31 homers that year, but lost to Stan Musial (can't argue with that)! The commissioner replaced two Reds outfielders with Willie Mays and Henry Aaron (can't argue with that, either!), but let the other five Reds starters stand. After the season, the fans lost the vote until 1970.

vortex, I'll have a 16 oz. RC Cola

Also, it was newspapers enabling the ballot stuffing. Apparently, at the time, the only way to vote outside of going to games was to cut a ballot out of a newspaper, fill it out, and mail it in. So at least one Cincinnati newspaper printed up multiple ballots, already filled out with all Reds players, in their Sunday edition.

I like what Bill James suggested in his first Historical Abstract ... have precinct voting: Whoever finishes #1 at catcher in ballots cast at Turner Field (or at any NL park) -- whether they win by one vote or by 50,000 -- gets 16 points, #2 gets 15, #3 gets 14, etc. And you could make Internet/mail ballots a separate precinct.

Funny you should mention that! I just wasted a lot of time figuring out who the All-Stars would be by a method James described in June 2009 (registration required). Each fanbase votes for THEIR OWN players. Then:

The manager would pick the roster, within these limits:
1) That he must pick one player from each team,
2) That he must pick at least 8 players who finished first in the balloting in their precinct,
3) That he must pick at least 12 players who finished 1 or 2 in the balloting in their precinct,
4) That he must pick at least 16 players who finished 1, 2 or 3 in the balloting in their precinct, and
5) That he cannot pick more than two players from any team.

I think it’s a better system; I think it makes a better game with stronger rosters, more meaningful participation from the fans, and it makes selection to the game a real honor. New York and Boston and LA fans can’t swamp the voting because there are more of them; they can only vote for their own guys. Fans are not asked (or not allowed) to vote on hundreds of players, many of whom they probably haven’t thought about all season. They’re asked to sort out the players on their home team.

I’d pay to watch [these] guys play a baseball game. Chone Figgins taking his at bat and getting congratulations for being an All-Star… .I’ve seen enough of that. No city gets shorted in the voting, nobody gets to go to the All-Star game because his old manager owes him a favor and he’s having a decent year. It’s all stars.

And this is where you lose me. The rest of the idea is ok, I don't really like it, but it's not awful. This is just incredibly stupid though. Almost every year there is at least one team that has 3 or more players who are clearly deserving all stars.

For example, under these rules, Jeter and Rivera basically make the all star team every year for the past 10 years and no other Yankees make it. Maybe A-Rod sneaks in over them in his MVP years. They had lots of other guys who were deserving all stars in those years.

I like players having outstanding half-seasons getting named to the game. I could certainly see forgoing the guys having very good but not amazing years getting passed up in favor of established stars but I think it's great that someone like Fernando Rodney gets recognition for the ridiculous year he's having after so many years of being ordinary or worse.

The All-Stars should be the players that are having the best year. Otherwise, it becomes the Irving Thalberg Award

Alternatively, all-stars whould be the best players at their position regardless of whether they've had a hot or cold 300 PAs.

Anyway, "stars" are guaranteed to make it by the fan vote. If Pujols can't pull votes, what can we say other than he's not a star (yet) in AL fans eyes. I don't know what AL fans have been watching ... but apparently it hasn't been the NL for the last decade. But if the fans* want to see Jeter then they want to see Jeter and that means Jeter is a star (assuming there's anybody to compete against him ... I mean I don't think anybody thinks Napoli's a "star" but obviously there aren't any "real stars" at C).

The players' vote is structured stupidly and needs to be changed/abolished. You can't really praise or blame them for their picks as it's pretty random.

So really it's a question of whether the managers should go by half-season or "best" -- but they're also operating within the constraints of roster flexibility and the one-per-team rule so I'm not sure how many times they have to choose between "hot" and "best."

* The counter-argument being that (probably) there are more non-Jeter votes than Jeter votes so it's not like there's a fan consensus that they want to see him. Could be as many or more fans sick of seeing him there as voted for him.

Another of Bill James's ideas (IIRC) was to consider the ~162-game stretch since the last ASG game. That's probably a good bellwether of who the best players are right now, but it's not an very intuitive way to think about voting.

I never vote anyway, honestly. I think it's the "Vote 25 Times!" announcements that killed my interest. They should ink your thumbprint and have Jimmy Carter monitor the ballots.

Another of Bill James's ideas (IIRC) was to consider the ~162-game stretch since the last ASG game. That's probably a good bellwether of who the best players are right now, but it's not an very intuitive way to think about voting.

That is more or less what I try to do. Roughly speaking I go 1/3 current season, 1/3 combined since last all star break, 1/6 last three years and 1/6 career. Not completely locked into those percentages, but basically I start with every player at the position having a decent year, then look at their numbers since the all star break of last year(or in cases like Buster Posey their entire last year) and make a subjective adjustment based upon how good they "really" are (last three year average) and whether they get props for their career.

The players' vote is structured stupidly and needs to be changed/abolished. You can't really praise or blame them for their picks as it's pretty random.

Agreed, even a simple change such as saying "if the players vote matches up with the fan vote, then that is their vote" would be just fine, the stupidity of allowing their second choice to go in is beyond stupid. Right now it's a massive hindrance and is largely the sole responsibility for the all star snubs.